It has come to be known of late that endocrine disturbing chemicals (environmental hormones) existing in our living environment, such as bisphenol A, dibutyl phthalate, vinclozolin, polychlorobiphenyls, ethynylestradiol, nonylphenol, etc., not to speak of dioxins, affect the reproductive functions of animals to reduce their sexual activities either reversibly or at times irreversibly and impair male genital organs causing decreases in sperm count, in particular. These endocrine disturbing chemicals are present in the environment and act at low concentrations so that they have become a social problem.
It is difficult, in the state of the art, to protect individuals from contaminations with such endocrine disturbing chemicals and all the countermeasures so far known are a negative measure which comprises measuring the concentrations of endocrine disturbing chemicals in foodstuffs and seeing to it that foods contaminated beyond tolerable concentration limits will be not ingested and a measure which comprises recommending the intake of diet fiber, chitin, chitosan, etc. which are expected to adsorb endocrine disturbing chemicals and let them be excreted as so adsorbed.
Meanwhile, Withania somnifera Dunal. is a tree of the genus Withania of the family Solanaceae, which is distributed in India and South Africa. It is a time-honored folk medicine or diet efficacious for sthenia, antirheumatism, antisenescence, and prophylaxis of marasmus in young children, among other indications (e.g. Kalpana Sharma and P. C. Dandiya; INDIAN DRUGS, 29 (6), 247-250) and, as such, has been used broadly.
As the constituents of Withania somnifera, alkaloids such as cuscohygrine, anahygrine, tropine, pseudotropine, anaferine, dl-isopellatierine, 3-tropyltigloate, withasomine, visamine, withaninine, withanine, pseudowithaninine, 3-alpha-tigloyloxytropane, choline, etc. and withanolides such as withaferin A, sitoindosides I-X, withanolide N, withanolide O, withanolide D, withanolide E, withanolide P, withanolide S, withanolide Q, withanolide R, withanolide G, withanolide H, withanolide I, withanolide J, withanolide K, withanolide U, withanolide Y, etc. are known.